A world of child soldiers & cowboys

To their own devices: Pablo Larrain's 'The Club'

August 24, 2015

Physical contact had nothing to do with it. The
injury happened in space, which, in a way, makes the season-ending injury to
Jordy Nelson appear as it were, inevitable.

Then again, everything Jordy Nelson does is about a
vastness of breadth. He creates it where there is none. He stretches it beyond
where it exists already. He is, at all times, a manipulator of space, which is,
aside from the awfulness of the injury itself, what’s so disturbing about this
meaningful moment that occurred in an otherwise meaningless game. Jordy Nelson’s
body unraveled in the space he created for it.

If there’s something tragic in these events, the
tragedy is akin to a comic book scientist being undone by his own inventive malice.
And, while Nelson's absence creates opportunities for Randall Cobb, Davante Adams,
and Jeff Janis, none of them can do what he does. And that means
everyone is about to be a lot less open.